SPN Comment Fic: Dean with a toothache
by boysinperil
Summary: What is it with me and toothache stories? Anyway - here's my first Supernatural attempt. K because Dean swears.


Prompt: Dean has a tooth ache and is unwilling to go to a dentist. It gets more painful by the minute, but Dean's stubborn and refuses to see a dentist. How it finally resolves itself is up to the author :)

It starts in June, in a diner outside Omaha, Nebraska - a sharp pain when he chews down on a forkful of pancakes. Pancakes, for fuck's sake, pancakes are soft. Who breaks a tooth on a pancake? And they don't really have time or money to hunt down an emergency dentist, so Dean just swallows some ibuprofen with his soda and ignores it.

By July, in Nevada, and why the fuck are they in these hot-ass ugly desert states in the middle of summer anyway and not even Vegas, with showgirls and swimming pools, and why can't there ever be a haunted casino, huh? Anyway, by July it's an occasional nagging ache, low in his jaw. Except when it flares, and the pain amps up to eleven, spreading slowly from his jaw to the top of his head and down into his shoulder. It'll last twenty minutes or so, then fade back away, and when it's at the peak it's all he can do not to turn to Sam and beg him _just fucking hit me in the face, please Sammy_. Dean dips into their precious supply of antibiotics (running low, need to fix that) and ignores it.

The flares come back in September, but this time they're accompanied by random electrical shocks across his lower jaw and throat. The first time one hits he's driving down some dark highway in Ohio and it hurts so bad he actually yells a little, startling Sam out of the research he's doing by flashlight.

"What? What the hell?" Sam yelps, and if Dean wasn't getting over the shock of being fucking shocked, he'd think it was way funnier. As it is, he's got one hand on the steering wheel and one massaging his jaw, and Sam just gives him the stink-eye and says, "you really need to get that looked at, Dean."

"It's just a tooth, Sammy. No one's died from a toothache. Doesn't even hurt now." And it doesn't - except for those random moments when it does, which get closer and closer together until it's pretty much always there, like how he's always kind of tired and sore and it's just one more thing. What else can he do? Dean ignores it.

In November, it's wet and grey and ugly, so it must be Oregon, and now along with the stupid toothache, Dean's forgotten how to swallow. Like, he went to bed fine, and this morning everything hurts and his skin is on fire and swallowing is like eating glass. Just fucking lovely. Sam runs out and gets him some Theraflu, and babies him (just a little, because he's not a fucking girl) and makes him soup. He can't swallow it.

"Dean, I don't think this is the flu, man," Sam says on the second day. "I can see your throat swelling from here." It does look bigger. Dean chokes down another does of medicine, but by lunchtime he can barely breathe. Sam grabs their phones, the keys, and the credit card they save for hospital visits (Dr. Dean Hibbert, Sam had to fight him not to apply in the name Doc Hollywood), and they're in the ER before Dean can even process it; he's too focused on getting even the tiniest flow of air into his lungs. You'd think he'd be used to choking, but it's his second least favorite way of nearly-dying. Flying is first.

It is a good way to get to the top of the triage list, though; and soon Dean's at the center of a hurricane of _sublingual swelling_ and _cellulitis_ and _infection_ and _intubation_ and goddammit he really fucking hates being on a ventilator but he can't get in enough air to tell them or even to fight...

...and then he's opening his eyes to find Sam standing at the foot of his bed, that crease that says more clearly than words _jesus, Dean, you have to stop taking care of everyone but yourself or you're going to end up dead_, and he tries to say _shut up, Sammy_ but his throat is on fire, even if he can breathe again.

Sam brings him some water, cool and soothing and not a beer but it'll do. When Dean tries to talk a second time, it comes out raspy but clear. "Huh. I guess you _can_ almost die from a toothache."


End file.
